Mass protest in Belgrade against President Vucic’s government

Tens of thousands of people descended on Belgrade on Saturday for a mass rally seen as a culmination of months-long protests against Serbia’s populist President Aleksandar Vucic’s government.

Large crowds of flag-waving protesters clogged the downtown area of the capital despite occasional rain, with people hardly able to move and many stuck hundreds of meters away from the planned protest venue.

Protesters converged after meeting up at several agreed-on protest venues in various parts of the city, which was placed on high alert. All public transport was cancelled.

Ahead of the demonstration, Vucic repeatedly warned of alleged plans for unrest while threatening arrests and harsh sentences for any incidents.

A deafening sound of whistles, drums and vuvuzelas filled the air on Saturday. Some protesters carried banners that read, “He’s Finished!” Crowds chanted “Pump it Up,” a slogan adopted during past four months of student-led protests.

”I expect that this will shake his authority and that Vucic will realise that people are no longer for him,” Milenko Kovacevic, a protester, said.

The rally — which is probably the biggest anti-government protest ever held in the Balkan country — comes after more than four months of anti-corruption demonstrations that have posed the biggest challenge to Vucic’s grip on power after 13 years in charge.

The massive rally is not the endgame in a struggle for a more democratic Serbia, Dejan Simic, a protester, said. “This is just the beginning of the end, a process which I hope will end soon,” he said.

Protesting university students have led the nationwide anti-graft movement, which started after a concrete canopy collapsed at a train station and killed 15 people in Serbia’s north on Nov. 1. Many in Serbia blamed the crash on rampant government corruption, negligence and disrespect of construction safety regulations.

With their call for justice for the victims, students have struck a chord among the citizens who are disillusioned with politicians and have lost faith in the state institutions.

Hundreds of riot police deployed in Belgrade

On Friday evening, tens of thousands of people staged a joyous welcome for the students who have been walking or cycling for days from across Serbia toward Belgrade.

Interior Minister Ivica Dacic told state RTS broadcaster that 13 people were detained overnight. He said police detained six opposition activists for allegedly plotting to stage a coup and stir unrest.

By Saturday morning people were assembling in various parts of the city as they marched toward the centre. The entire downtown zone was flooded with people hours before the scheduled start of the gathering.

Reflecting the tensions, police said they arrested a man who rammed his car into protesters in a Belgrade suburb, injuring three people. Hundreds of police officers were deployed inside and around government buildings and in front of the presidential palace.

The Belgrade authorities cancelled all public transport, including intercity railway and bus links, in an apparent effort to prevent people from attending the rally. The transport company said the cancellation was made “for security reasons.”

Several reporters from neighboring Croatia as well as Slovenia have been turned back from Serbia’s border and were told that their presence at the rally “represents a security risk.”

Vucic claims West is backing protests

Vucic has rejected earlier proposals for a transitional government that would prepare an early election. Fuelling fears of clashes, Vucic’s supporters have been camping in central Belgrade in front of his headquarters. They include ex-members of a dreaded paramilitary unit involved in the assassination in 2003 of Serbia’s first democratic Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, as well as soccer hooligans who are known for causing violence.

Private N1 television on Saturday broadcast footage of dozens of young men with baseball caps going into the pro-Vucic camp.

Vucic has been claiming that Western intelligence services were behind almost daily student-led protests aiming to oust him from power. He has presented no evidence for the claims.

Previous student-led rallies in other Serbian cities have been peaceful while drawing huge crowds.